Streamlining IT for Better Business Performance
IT processes and policies can either restrict or help your organization in optimizing its IT infrastructure. The more complex an organization's IT infrastructure becomes, the more important it is to follow consistent and formal operational processes and policies.
When processes and policies are based on best practices and are automatic and consistent, organizations can focus more IT resources on achieving strategic business goals. The Microsoft Operations Framework offers guidance and resources to help your organization improve its IT processes and policies and keep business running smoothly.
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As businesses grow, IT infrastructures become more complex. Adding people, programs, and functionality can threaten to overwhelm existing processes. This can hurt business performance in a number of ways:
- Informal processes start to fail. Informal, implied, or ill-defined IT processes can impede common understanding of who, within an organization, is accountable for maintaining service and managing workflows. This slows problem-solving and complicates planning for future expansion. Keeping up with ever-changing laws and regulations adds even more pressure to formalize these processes and define accountability.
- Manual processes can't keep pace. When automation is not an option, manual processes must be used. When these manual systems are undefined, it can be difficult to adhere to formal or informal standards, such as configuration management, change control, ongoing operations, and problem management.
- Lack of service level agreements creates investment lags. Organizations need consistent and formal operational processes and policies before they can establish service level agreements (SLAs). Without SLAs, measuring operational performance and setting IT goals is nearly impossible, as is accurate planning for future IT investments.
- IT problems become harder to prevent. Organizations that do not adequately monitor their IT infrastructures miss opportunities to prevent problems before they cause business disruptions. Service monitoring in IT operations identifies and prioritizes both critical services and IT components necessary to maintain optimal organization performance.
- Improvements become stalled. IT organizations must provide measurements to track improvements such as operational excellence and service quality, so ongoing improvements can be made.
The Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) tools and related guidance provide the solution to these and more customer operational challenges on the Microsoft environment. IT process and policy can be defined and established for any size organization by using and adopting MOF best practices, reference architecture, security solutions, and governance and regulatory compliance guidance as well as related tools from Microsoft TechNet. These MOF resources can help your company with the following issues:
Design and build IT infrastructure for operations. Align your business needs and operational best practices according to your services, starting with formalized processes at the component level. To plan and build Windows Server infrastructure, turn for guidance to Windows Server System Reference Architecture (WSSRA), Branch Office Infrastructure Solution (BOIS), and Virtual Environments for Development and Test (VE).
Automate deployment and improve monitoring of IT services and infrastructure. Microsoft System Center products and Solution Accelerators combine Microsoft technology with industry operational best practices to help automate infrastructure and service deployment and prepare for operations. For example, the Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) Solution Accelerator facilitates desktop deployment, defines stakeholders and accountabilities, and establishes workflows and procedures. System Center products and Solution Accelerators can also help you eliminate common inefficiencies resulting from manual processes.
Streamline operations and implement continuous improvement practices. The Microsoft Operations Framework and Security and Compliance Solutions work together to help you formalize auditable processes, even if the process is not automated or technology is not available. With MOF guidance and tools, organizations can define services, establish performance baselines, set service level agreements, install change controls, monitor performance, and relate IT service excellence back to business stakeholders. Continuous improvement is achieved through ongoing Service Management Assessments and Service Improvement Programs provided with the MOF Continuous Improvement Roadmap toolkit.
The Microsoft IT process and policy solutions can help your organization define and manage IT services so that it can unlock the value of this important business asset. With this Microsoft solution, your organization can:
- Improve process accountability with formalized processes.
- Provide auditable IT services for governance and regulatory compliance.
- Design and architect IT infrastructure and services based on business needs.
- Automate repeated tasks to improve efficiency.
- Reduce downtime and troubleshooting with defined incident management procedures and proactive service monitoring.
- Establish performance baselines and defined service levels.
- Continuously improve IT Service Management.
- Better predict IT investments and ROI based on SLAs.
- Increase business agility to respond to new opportunities.
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